Frozen
The snow-covered continent of Antarctica is the kingdom of many penguin families, but Beta feels that only they can be called real penguins, because they are called emperor penguins, dressed in gorgeous tuxedos, or well-behaved, or cute, or like a young man, or like a curvaceous lady. And behold, God has made them so perfect, the whole body is harmonious, there is an orange-yellow feather under the neck, gradually lightening downward, and the ears are deepened to bright yellow orange, the neck is pale yellow, the belly is milky white, the back and flippers are black, and the bottom of the beak is bright orange, whether black or white, it is smooth and delicate, like satin.
Beta is a male penguin, Ella is a female penguin, Beta likes Ella, it can be described as love at first sight. The days of the so-called immortal couple are full of love and honey every second. Every year from November to March, it is the warm season of the Antarctic continent, and all the characters appear, including penguins, skuas, giant petrels, albatrosses, orcas, killer whales and sharks, as if holding a grand carnival. Now it's the world of the ocean, and the delicious krill seems to be as thick as air, and the joyous atmosphere is a little suffocating. Penguins don't like the feeling of warmth, because the clothing they wear has a bit of a problem with heat dissipation, so most of the time they swim in the blue waves, they are all good swimmers, emperor penguins swimming speed of 5.4~9.6 km / h. New scientific research suggests that emperor penguins can release millions of foam through feathers that reduce friction between feathers and icy water, allowing swimming speeds up to 3 times faster to 30 kilometers per hour to avoid leopard-shaped seals pushing themselves out onto the ice. Beta and Ella are enjoying their honeymoon, chasing and frolicking each other in the ocean, gliding on the water one moment and diving into the water the next, tumbling up and down like birds in the sky. Beta can dive to a maximum depth of about 500 meters, but Ella can't, he always wants to be by her side, even if it is a very short time, it feels long, maybe only when capturing the delicacy in the deep sea for her, Beta will dive to the deepest, but every time Ella reproaches him coquettishly, the eyes of each other are full of enthusiasm, infecting the temperature of love in the entire sea.
Antarctic penguins like to live in groups, a group of hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands, the most even more than 10~200,000. It is active most of the year between the nesting area and the feeding area of the ocean. Flocks of penguins can often be seen gathering on the ice shelves of the Antarctic continent, or on the sea ice and ice floes in the sea around Antarctica. Sometimes they are lined up in neat lines, facing in one direction and walking in unison, like a well-trained honor guard, waiting and welcoming visitors from afar; Sometimes they are lined up in equal distances and spaced squares, like athletes performing in group gymnastics, and the formation is very neat and spectacular. In April, Antarctica begins to enter early winter, and emperor penguins climb ashore and begin to look for a treasure land to "settle down". After the above-mentioned love journey, the partner is chosen, and their love life takes a leap - the family life begins to mate, conceive eggs, lay eggs, hatch eggs and raise chicks. Before the onset of winter in Antarctica, adult emperor penguins have to walk 50 to 120 kilometers in the Antarctic ice floe area and move to the ice wasteland breeding area.
In May, Ella was about 2 months pregnant, and according to the expected date of delivery, she should have laid eggs. Sure enough, when they were about to go to bed in the evening, Ella felt a burst of abdominal pain, Beta watched his wife breathe hard, pacing back and forth anxiously, but at a loss, but Ella forced a smile, like comforting a child who did something wrong, facing Beta, after a heart-wrenching baptism, Ella gave birth to the crystallization of her and Beta's love, an egg like a duck egg, but larger than a duck egg, a full 500 grams.
From mid-July to early August, the little emperor penguins hatched one after another. At this time, the male emperor penguin can move his body a little. Before the female emperor penguin returns, the little emperor penguin has no food to eat, it is too hungry, the male emperor penguin will regurgitate a white secretion into the little penguin's mouth, this secretion is said to have little nutrition, just to cope with it.
After about 60 days, the female penguin is well-fed, fat and strong, returns from the distant sea, and can accurately find her husband in the flock of penguins, at this time, the baby penguin has just been born, and the female penguin takes the baby penguin from the male penguin's arms, takes on the responsibility of raising offspring, and feeds the baby penguin with the nutrients it stores in the stomach. At this time, the scrawny and exhausted male penguin unloads his burden and heads straight to the distant sea to hunt delicious Antarctic krill.
There was a baby waiting to be nursed at home, and Beta hurried back after feasting. The toddler years of newborn penguins are spent on and around male penguins, who are both fathers and conservationists. Ella looked at the newborn little guy full of fluffy, gray-yellow, staring at a pair of small eyes with an inner circle, walking, tilted east, cute and cute, they named him Alpha.
Alpha was born about 3 months ago, and when the Antarctic summer came, he followed his parents into the sea to forage and swim. Before the emperor penguin can really mature, it needs to be carefully raised by its parents, and it must also learn basic survival skills such as walking, swimming, and foraging independently. It takes 14 to 16 months for the little penguins to fully mature and become independent. Since the mating season of penguins is fixed, when the little penguins grow up and mature, it is the season when the food in the sea is most abundant.
Due to the continuous increase in sea temperature, the penguin's food source has been drastically reduced, and their habitat is deteriorating, which seriously threatens the survival of penguins. Looking at the crystal world around them but no longer calm, the Beta family hopes that humans will care more about the environment they live in in the future.
